Environmental Harm

An Eco-justice Perspective

Distributed for Policy Press at the University of Bristol

Cloth $110.00ISBN: 9781447300403
Published
October 2013
For sale in North and South America only

Paper $39.95ISBN: 9781447300410
Published
February 2015
For sale in North and South America only

Challenging conventional definitions of environmental harm, this book considers the problem from an eco-justice perspective. Rob White identifies and analyzes three interconnected approaches to environmental harm: environmental justice (which focuses on harm to humans), ecological justice (which focuses on harm to the environment), and species justice (which focuses on harm to nonhuman animals). Examining the efforts of activists and social movements engaged in these causes, White describes the tensions between the three approaches and calls for a new eco-justice framework that will allow for the reconciliation of these differences.

“Rob White has been at the forefront of green criminology, developing frameworks of analysis for understanding ecological degradation. In this book, he blazes an important new trail, establishing a moral basis for action.”

Piers Beirne, University of Southern Maine

“White provides a magisterial overview of the promise and the performance of recent green writing about environmental, ecological and species justice. His insight is keen and genuine, his commentary on difficult and troubling issues always fair-minded.”

Chris Moloney, Colorado State University | Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

"There are few scholars whose names are as synonymous with the fields of green criminology and the study of environmental harm as is Rob White’s. . . . Environmental Harm continues to refine the conceptual and theoretical boundaries of green criminology and the study of environmental problems. . . . A concise and practical read that handily summarizes key arguments and debates that any green criminologist or environmental harm researcher should be aware of. It should find a place on the bookshelves of many scholars."

Contents

List of tables, figures and boxes

About the author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Environmental harm and social harm approaches

Green criminology and environmental harm

An eco-justice perspective

Conflicting views and moral dilemmas

1 Justice-based approaches to environmental harm

Introduction

Components of an eco-justice perspective

Contentious concepts

Key questions about harm

The moral calculus: weighing up the harm

Conclusion

2 Environmental justice and harm to humans

Introduction

Contentious concepts: environmental justice

Social patterns of harm and risk

Harm, place and the local

Transborder conflicts over land

Conclusion: measuring the value of human life

3 Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature

Introduction

Contentious concepts: ecological justice

Transforming nature

Land, property and the global commons

Conservationism and social division

Conclusion: measuring the value of nature

4 Species justice and harm to animals

Introduction

Contentious concepts: species justice

Categorising animals

Crime, criminology and animals

Animals, particular species and individuals

Conclusion: measuring the value of animals

5 Toward eco-justice for all

Introduction

Contentious concepts: eco-justice

Nature, species and culture

Socio-economic context of environmental harm

Eco-justice in practice

Conclusion: where to from here?

References

Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu